Black-Eyed Stranger by Charlotte Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page A

came after my knitting, you know, in the first place—”
    â€œNo, ma’am. Please don’t go. I …”
    â€œNow, that’s very sweet.” She cocked her head. “But you’ll find I’m quite well trained. I do know my place.” He closed his mouth.
    â€œSilly,” said the girl, wrinkling her nose.
    Her mother put a forefinger on the girl’s own short straight well-boned little nose, so like her own, and she pushed it, playfully. “He’s very nice, sweetie. Your Mr. Lynch. He calls me ma’am, and I do enjoy that.” She smiled at Sam. “I hope you will come again.”
    Sam stood there. He should have said, “Thank you,” and maybe he did. She prompted a man to his manners. But he held on to the back of the chair beside him, just the same, and silently, he watched her trip away and rise sedately up the stairs.
    Kay whirled around and looked at him. “What’s the matter?”
    He groped for the chairback with his other hand, too, and he bent over it. “She’s knocked me for some kind of loop, your mother has. Sister, I’m scared.”
    â€œScared! Mother? Scared you?”
    â€œUh huh,” he said nervously. “Yeah.”
    â€œBut she’s—Nobody in the world is more harmless! What—”
    â€œWho trained her?” he murmured. “Who taught her her place?”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean.”
    â€œI know you don’t,” he groaned. “Never mind.” He flopped into the chair.
    â€œBut she liked you. I could tell.”
    â€œBecause of a word,” Sam said. “Because I called her ma’am. Because I remembered my manners.”
    Her eyes sparked. “Mother’s not stupid. She’s a very good judge.”
    He shook his head. “Look, don’t people keep track of their kids any more? I’m out of date? The modern world has passed me by?”
    The girl laughed at him. She tucked herself into a chair, sitting on her foot, and the tooth was definitely out of line on the right side of her laughing mouth. “Oh, my goodness!” Her eyes were half size with the rise of her cheeks, and bright and brimming, and her mirth was a pretty thing. A laughing girl was a most delightful thing. “But I’m not a kid, for heaven’s sake! What did you and mother say? ”
    â€œI told her,” he said glumly, “we met at a party.” The girl sobered. “She took that for an answer.”
    â€œIt is an answer.”
    â€œNo,” he said.
    â€œYou mean you didn’t tell her whose party?” The girl’s face pinkened.
    â€œ That she didn’t ask.”
    â€œIt’s just as well,” Kay murmured. “Mother’s sweet but a perfect sieve. It’s Daddy who would be upset, I’m afraid. He’s the old-fashioned one. But you’re … funny. You really don’t look old-fashioned, Mr. Lynch.”
    â€œIs Daddy around?” he asked sharply.
    â€œI think so,” she was vague. She looked a little stubborn. “After all,” she declared, “if I hadn’t gone to the party, we wouldn’t have met. You wouldn’t be here.”
    â€œI know,” he said.
    â€œDidn’t you have a good time at the party?”
    His black eyes, resting on her face, despaired. He sucked a long breath in and sighed it out again. “After you left,” he stated coldly, “one of the guests inquired. Wanted to know what kind of girl you were.”
    â€œNow, isn’t that flattering!” she beamed.
    â€œNo. It wasn’t.”
    The twinkle on her face vanished as if he had slapped her. Sam said, furiously, “You don’t know what it’s all about, any more than she does. Talk about giddy! How am I going to tell you anything? You’re a baby.”
    â€œDid you come to scold me?” the girl asked plaintively.
    â€œIt looks like I came to talk to